Whitney Dyer makes a living helping to plan outdoor trips for students at the University of Northern Colorado.

She oversees much of the Outdoor Pursuits staff and loves to see folks enjoy the outdoors.

But she also wants people to be safe. Dyer is the assistant director of Outdoor Pursuits and risk management at UNC.

Planning your trip can prevent things going wrong as well as troubleshooting when things actually do go wrong, Dyer said.

That’s why this year Outdoor Pursuits will host a Stoneheart Open Learning Opportunities Wilderness First Aid course, which is open to the community. It’s a 20-hour certification course that teaches leadership, medical skills, patient management and incident prevention in the outdoors. The certification is good for two years.

“It’s good for anyone who accesses the backcountry,” Dyer said.

The course will touch on things such as altitude sickness, hypothermia and blister treatments – some of the more common, more basic injuries that can happen in the outdoors.

That course, which is open to the community, costs around $700 for non-students and $650 for UNC students.

Dyer said most students taking the course were out-of-state, if not out of country. That’s why this year Outdoor Pursuits decided to incorporate the Stoneheart Open Learning Opportunities Wilderness First Aid course. It’s cheaper and it takes less time to complete.

“We wanted to see if it was something our campus or people in the Greeley community were interested in,” Dyer said.